Raisa Smetanina biography
Raisa Smetanina, in full Raisa Petrovna Smetanina, (born February 29, 1952, Komi, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Russian cross-country skier who was the primary girl to win 10 profession medals on the Olympic Winter Games.
A champion in each the person and group occasions, Smetanina gained a silver medal within the 5-km race and gold medals within the 4 × 5-km relay and the 10-km occasion on the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. She took the gold within the 5-km race and a silver within the 4 × 5-km relay on the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, New York, U.S., and on the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina), she gained silver medals within the 10- and 20-km cross-country occasions. Smetanina repeated her silver-medal-winning efficiency within the 10-km occasion on the 1988 Games in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and took a bronze within the 20-km race. She was 39 years previous when she competed in her closing Olympics on the 1992 Games in Albertville, France, the place she gained a group gold medal within the 4 × 5-km relay, making her the oldest feminine gold medalist in Winter Olympic historical past.
A star of the powerhouse Russian girls’s ski group, Smetanina was a nationwide champion in 1974, 1976, and 1977 and a world champion in 1974 and 1978. Smetanina’s 10 Olympic medals had been probably the most gained by a feminine athlete in Winter Olympic historical past; later Stefania Belmondo and Marit Bjørgen, each of whom had been additionally cross-country skiers, tied her document. In addition, Smetanina’s first and final medals had been gained over a span of 16 years—a feat made much more spectacular by the truth that she medaled in each Olympic Games in between.